To begin with, it must be emphasized that not each and every one of the total of 1132 analysed concordance lines has relevance for my study. Indeed, there are two kinds of cases that I want to bring up at this point. Firstly, as it has been pointed out several times, the verb agree does not necessarily need a complement to stand as a grammatical sentence and is thus often used without any supplementing second element at all. Although such instances do represent authentic,
grammatically correct uses of the verb agree, they are certainly of little interest here, the focus being on the complementation. Secondly, in some of the analysed tokens agree is not used as a verb and the verb forms of agree being the very essence of the thesis, such cases are undoubtedly
irrelevant. The following table shows the frequencies of these two excluded groups in each sub-section – the results are given in raw numbers and their normalized frequencies (i.e. the number of occurrences per million words) have been counted to make the three periods comparable:
Part I: 1710-1780 Part II: 1780-1850 Part III: 1850-1920 Pattern Occurrence
Table 9: The occurrences of the zero complements and the irrelevant cases in the CLMET data
To get some examples to illustrate these two cases, let us first consider some sentences that illustrate the verb agree used with a zero complement. The following two are taken from the first part (1710-1780) of the CLMET data:
(1) We played together, and passed our time much in the common way: sometimes we quarrelled, and sometimes agreed, just as accident would have it. (Fielding: The Governess)
(2) A better shall we have? A kingdom of the just let it be: but first consider how those agree. The good must merit God’s peculiar care: But who, but God can tell us who they are? (Pope: An Essay on Man)
Indeed, sentences (1) and (2) have no explicitly expressed complements and so far so good! If one tried to add a complement – agree with, for instance, might theoretically work – the resulting sentences would sound rather awkward and artificial (i.e. sometimes agreed with each other; but first consider how those agree with each other). This is not, however, the case in the two following examples taken from the second part (1780-1850) of the CLMET data
(3) …advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit… (Brontë: Wuthering Heights)
(4) This was rumoured through the town, and at last the padres and the governor consulted together, and agreed it must be some heresy. (Darwin: Voyage of the Beagle)
It is fairly easy think of potential complements for sentences (3) and (4) – in the former agree to might work (i.e. Mr. Earnshaw agreed to this) and in the latter it seems that the conjunction that got swallowed in writing zeal (i.e. and agreed that it must be some heresy). The normalized frequencies show that zero complementation is on the increase: though there is a slight decrease after the first period, zero complementation is most definitely enjoying a revival toward the 20th century. Among the 103 zero complement cases of the third set (1850-1920) there are several tokens that resemble those illustrated in sentences (3) and (4) above – that is, the sentence has no complement, though there could be one. Moreover, the following examples also provide an explanation for the great number of zero complements:
(5)”…try the faults of Miss Honeychurch; they are not innumberable.” “She has none,” said the young man, with grave sincerity. “I quite agree. At present she has none.” (Forster: A Room with a View) (6) “I don’t manage the Wilcoxes, I don’t see where they come in.” “No more do I,” agreed Helen.
(Forster: Howards End)
(7) “Well,” he agreed, with sulky resignation, “you must have it your own way, I suppose.”
(Galsworthy: The Man of Property)
As for sentence (5), for instance, agree with might be a possible candidate (i.e. I quite agree with you). However, for some reason in the third data set there are numerous tokens when agree is used to report direct speech, as exemplified in sentences (6) and (7). This is probably due to the fact that the texts of the third part are belletristic to a great extent.
Furthermore, table 9 shows that each set contains a handful of completely irrelevant cases. Unwilling to leave them completely out, I decided to include some examples of such cases, just by means of illustration. The following two examples are taken from the 1710-1780 data:
(8) MISS HARDCASTLE. And as one of us must be mistaken, what if we go to make further discoveries? HARDCASTLE. [Agreed]. And if I find him what you describe, all my happiness in him must have an end. [Exit.] (Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer)
(9) …and also suppose, that after the expiration of the term agreed on, he demands the sum… (Hume:
Treatise of Human Nature)
In sentence (8), agreed is used to give the actor playing Hardcastle a hint how to express his next line and as for sentence (9), agreed on is used as an adjective to post-modify the noun phrase the expiration of the term. Moreover, to give each section a fair hearing, the following four examples
are taken from the second (sentences 10 and 11) and from the third (sentences 12 and 13) part of the CLMET data:
(10) “Whoever first beholds him shall fire the train.” “Agreed!” replied Tristram. (Ainsworth: Windsor Castle)
(11) I am nearly agreed with Creech to print my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday. (Burns:
Letters)
(12) The one point the catastrophists and the uniformitarians agreed upon, when this Society was founded, was to ignore it. (Huxley: Discourses)
(13) Still more then in the more complex combinations and politics of human beings it is likely to be hard to find an agreed criterion for saying which nation is before another, or what age of a nation was inarching forward and which was falling back. (Bagehott: Physics and Politics)
Starting with sentence (10), it truly is the case that the cry of consent Agreed! is actually a past participle form of the verb agree. However, it is used in the same way as the expressions Deal! or No sooner said and done! – accordingly, we are not really dealing with a verb here. In sentence (11), on other hand, agreed is used as an adjective in a construction be agreed with. As for sentence (12), it may easily lead one astray for agreed is most evidently complemented here (i.e. agreed upon) – this is due to the fact that just like verbs, adjectives also have specific valencies. In the last instance – that is, sentence (13) – agreed is an attribute of the noun phrase criterion.
Fortunately enough, the rest of the analysed tokens are eligible and relevant in every respect and we do not need to exclude any further instances, nor start making up possible
complements. The complementation of the verb agree during the recent centuries will be explored in the following, richly illustrated with quotes from the CLMET data. The focus will first lie on clause complements and then move on to prepositional ones.